Nine Dots Studio recently informed us of its Kickstarter campaign to fund GoD Factory: Wingmen. The multiplayer space combat simulator give players the chance to engage in competitive 4v4 space combat in ships they construct themselves from a variety of parts. A Mac version of the game is planned, although it may not release simultaneously with the Windows PC version.

What is GoD Factory: Wingmen?

GoD Factory: Wingmen is a multiplayer space combat game in which the player works with a team of up to three other players to destroy the opponent’s Carrier while defending their own.

Before joining online matches, the player assembles two gunships by individually selecting the twelve parts that compose each ship. These parts are bought from the game's shop using Credits earned by playing games online. Once in-game, the players must destroy different key areas of the enemy Carrier to incapacitate it and ultimately destroy it. Destroying a Carrier part gives penalties to the enemy team, and each broken part inflicts a different penalty. The key to victory will be to work as a team and many weapons and abilities will have secondary uses that can only be triggered by joining up with other players. A game should last about 15 minutes on average and can't stretch beyond 25 minutes. The game will be playable both in third person, to see your ship you've built, or from inside the cockpit, for greater immersion.Vote for us on Greenlight!Vote for us on Greenlight!

This is primarily a PC game, but we're very open to the possibility of bringing the game to consoles if the opportunity arises. We will also have a Mac version, but it might not be available at launch. Linux is also a possibility, but no promise as of yet. Anyhow, you'll be happy to know that this game is not hardware intensive, so if you have a decent PC, even if it's a few years old, it should be able to run the game. We are working hard to make GoD Factory:Wingmen accessible to lots of people can play this game, without sacrificing the beauty of the visuals. We're already able to run the game quite decently on 5 years old laptops, so we're pretty confident that we'll be supporting a wide range of PCs.

Key features:

Many different gunship classes and parts to choose from;

Build 2 gunships and lend the one you're not using to your teammates or keep it for later;

Different weapons and abilities are amplified by cooperating with your allies;

Destroy the enemy Carrier part by part, taking away its abilities progressively;

A good game isn't just a set of features however, it's an experience, and it has to be approached like one. We're orienting ourselves on four key aspects of the experience that we'd like to deliver:(Taken straight from the Game Design Document!)

Create:

The player wants to feel that he's doing his own thing. He's crafting a ship that fits his preferences, he works on making a play style and strategy of his own. He wants to build his squad by joining like-minded players. Everything must come with a sense of ownership.

Fly:

We need to convey a sense of mobility to the player. He must be picturing himself moving into a 3D space with both skill and freedom, the ability to go wherever he feels like. The movement of the ship and the camera must give to players the reflex to tilt their heads to follow their ship's motion. They want to feel “there”.

Cooperate:

Any player wants to feel like he's playing an important part in his team. In order to do so, we must reward every actions done as a group and make sure that victory is achieved when everyone acts toward a common goal. In order to convince the player to be a team player, he must feel the presence of his allies in the fight.

Improve:

An aspect that will hook our players is the strong sense of progression when playing the game. Not only will his ships become better as he plays, but learning the complex systems and the meta-game will always give him something more to learn. One reason to keep playing is that you always get better.

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that was immensely successful here on Kickstarter. VR replaces your vision by the environment of the game by placing monitors in front of each eye. Motion tracking and stereoscopic 3D make this even more convincing.

Oculus Rift is not ideal for every game because it completely replaces your vision. For a game with a character that moves and jumps, it can feel a bit awkward as the player is sitting in a chair. However the experience from GoD: Wingmen is within a cockpit, creating the perfect environment for simulation.

It is our intent to support the Oculus Rift for GoD Factory and we hope that we'll be ready on time for launch.